


And I Was Set Alight

by teenuviel1227



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: M/M, Time Travel, plot and fluff and some mild smut, time traveler's wife au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-08 05:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14687490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenuviel1227/pseuds/teenuviel1227
Summary: Wonpil has known Brian all his life--but Brian doesn’t meet Wonpil for the first time until he’s twenty-seven, or the Time Traveler’s Wife AU where Brian is chrono-impaired and he and Wonpil’s love story is one that spans, is defined by, and defies time itself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Day 1 of YoungFeel week which is happening over at http://twitter.com/day6shipweeks the theme of which is Time Travel. :) I’m posting this first chapter early so that the final chapter goes up on Day 1 of YoungFeel week which is happening from June 4th to 10th. :D
> 
> I hope that you guys enjoy this. Please yell at me liberally in the comments because discussion is fun and also I need to be assured that I didn't waste two months working on this. xD 
> 
> Twt/CC/Tumblr: teenuviel1227

_**May 9, 2001** _  
_**Incheon, 04:50 PM** _

Wonpil is seven, Brian is forty.

  


When Wonpil hears the rustling in the bushes, his first instinct is to pick up his toy dagger--pink and plastic and pilfered from his sister’s old sailor moon paraphernalia he’d seen sitting in the basement. Today, he’s in the clearing outside his parents’ house, his lunchbox-slash-makeshift-suitcase open on the grass, his books and paint and toy keyboard out on the blanket he’s brought down with him. He’s dug his mom’s big, red umbrella into the ground and opened it, creating a small roof over his things just in case it rains. Today, Wonpil has decided to runaway from home--or at least run to his parents’ backyard.

His piano recital the day before had gone badly: he’d seen all of those people--his co-students at the music school, his parents who’d bragged about their little pianist who would eventually be the heir to their piano business, his sister who herself was on a fast-track to the conservatory of music up in Seoul, his piano teacher who kept on giving him encouraging looks--and he’d forgotten his entire piece. All of the music he’d spent so long practicing every afternoon for the better part of two months had just flown out of his head. Instead, he’d played something else: an older, more elementary piece that he’d learned more than a year and half before. As his fingers had struck the first keys, he’d glanced at his teacher’s face and seen it: disappointment hanging like a rosary around a rearview mirror.

He’d thrown a tantrum in the car, had hurled himself crying the entire way home and into the house, into his room, smashing the picture frames on his dresser, and wailing until his mom told him to please, please, please pull himself together.

 _Useless,_ Wonpil thought to himself as he lay under the covers, kicking his legs at the sheets, cheek pressed to a pillow. _I’m useless._

For a moment, he’d been convinced that things couldn’t get any worse--and then that morning his sister had broken the news that she’d gotten accepted on early admission into an arts high school. Everyone had said nice things but Wonpil could feel it there, strung between him and his parents: it was in the way that they kept on telling him about how when _his sister_ started out, she’d had a hard time too but she kept going and look at her now. It was in the way that they kept praising his sister’s stage presence and how they always knew that she would get in.

It bore into Wonpil’s heart like a heel into the earth.

The unspoken thing in the room--why can’t you be more like your sister?

So, he’d decided to run away. He was Kim Wonpil. If they wouldn’t love him for him, then so be it. He’d go somewhere else, then. He’d packed a bag full of everything he could ever need: watercolor palette and brushes, toy keyboard (he would make his own music), books, comics,  a hand-me-down discman that only had one record permanently stuck in it (Let It Be by The Beatles), two chocolate bars, a bag of chips, and his red plastic thermos filled with water.

Everything had been fine until just a moment ago: it was quiet, he was painting the sky and the patterns of the clouds--there was one that looked like a heart, one that resembled a bunny, a fox. And anyway, he could see the house from here with its big, imposing face: sure, he wanted to run away, but he didn’t want to run away so far that he wouldn’t see them if they came out to look for him.

What was the fun in running away if no one was going to come find you?

For the most part, everything is going according to plan--and then something in the bushes stirs. The Kim house is in the more rustic part of Incheon: everywhere leafy trees, mountainous terrain, rich earth. Theirs is ancestral land: a big house, a big yard, all of it sitting on the edge of a small thicket of woods that dropped down into a small alcove by the river. Sure, he’d grown up used to cats and even stray dogs, the occasional bird caught in the branches. But nothing like this, nothing like a sound, a presence where at first there was nothing--nothing followed by rustling, by _coughing,_ by an _ow!_

There’s someone in the bushes.

“Who’s there?” Wonpil plucks the umbrella from the ground, and wields it like a shield. The handle is covered in grass and dirt. He holds his plastic knife out, trying to remember what sailor moon always says in the cartoons to conjure her power. _By the power of the moon?_ “Come out or I’ll call the cops. I’ll call my parents. They’re just nearby. I’m not out here alone.”

“Wait,” a voice says--it’s deep but airy, pleasant. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Wonpil frowns. “That’s exactly what a murderer would say.”

From the bushes emerges a tall, handsome man with a shock of dark hair and deep-set eyes that remind Wonpil of a fox. He’s completely naked, the thicket covering most of him from the waist down. He holds his hands up.

“You’re naked!” Wonpil yells, dropping the knife and umbrella to cover his eyes. “Are you one of those perverts from those wanted posters near the grocery store?”

“No. Now, toss me the blanket,” the man says, laughing softly.

Slowly, Wonpil opens his eyes. He crosses his arms. “What if I come close and you stab me and throw me in the river?”

“ _Toss_ it to me, I said,” the man repeats before nodding over to a spot just east of the bushes. “Or toss it over there and I’ll go get it if you can be bothered to close your eyes again for five seconds.”

Wonpil sighs, his doubt catching on sympathy: what if the man was cold? What if he simply couldn’t afford clothes? What if he was in danger? Reluctantly, he puts his things back into his makeshift suitcase and folds up the blanket.

“Fine.”

Wonpil walks to one of the trees nearby and sets the blanket down there before walking back to his things. He closes his eyes tight, puts his hands over them.

“Go.”

As soon as he hears footsteps, movement, he pushes two of his fingers apart to peek as the man walks over to the blanket. He doesn’t _seem_ threatening. Wonpil notes the way that the man walks: confident but also careful, gentle. _I bet he doesn’t get stagefright._ He smiles a little as the man takes the blanket and wraps it neatly around his waist, broad hands working sure and steady.

He shuts his eyes again tightly as the man turns around and smiles at him.

“You know I can see you looking right?”

Wonpil sighs, rolling his eyes before crossing his arms over his chest.

“I needed to be sure you wouldn’t kidnap me. I gave you my blanket now tell me who you are.”

The man plops down on the ground next to Wonpil. Wonpil can feel him studying his face, an amused smile on his lips. The man has dimples in his cheeks. There are a few cuts on his hands from where he’d pressed up against earth and stone, grass and twigs.

“Well? I’m waiting.”

“Well. It’s a bit hard to explain.”

“What were you doing hiding in the plants?”

“I just landed there.”

“ _Landed?_ Are you an alien? Like in ET?”

The man lets out a laugh. It’s sonorant, turns his face--otherwise serious-looking, modelesque--into something kinder, brighter, innocent almost. “No. I’m a time traveler.”

“What?”

“I’m from the future.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Wonpil asks, lips pressed into a thin line. “That’s impossible.”

To his surprise, the man laughs. “I don’t think you’re stupid at all. You’re the smartest person I know, Pirrie. How is it you’re already a skeptic even as a kid?”

Wonpil frowns. “How did you know that was my nickname?”

“I told you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I know.”

“What’s _your_ name?”

“Brian.”

“Brian? That’s a TV name. American.”

“Canadian.”

“What’s a Canadian?”

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Wonpil scowls as he watches a smug grin form on the man’s lips.

“I hate it when people say things like that. Especially my mom. Or noona.”

“What’re you doing out here?” The man glances up at the house. “Trouble with the fam?”

“The _fam_ ,” Wonpil mimics, rolling his eyes. He plays with the hem of his t-shirt. When he speaks, his voice is hushed. “They’re _disappointed_ in me.”

“Is this about the recital? You had a bad case of stage fright?”

Wonpil’s eyes widen. “How did you know that?”

“You told me. In another time.”

Wonpil frowns. “Let’s say, just pretend, that what you’re saying is true--how do you know future me? Am I a famous pianist?”

Brian grins. “No spoilers.”

“No fair. Well. How am I supposed to believe you now? You can’t even tell me how you know me.”

“You could watch me disappear,” Brian says carefully, gaze falling on Wonpil’s paintings of clouds. Wonpil feels his cheeks heat up, suddenly self-conscious--those aren’t his best work. “Then you’d have to believe me.”

Wonpil pauses thoughtfully. “That works--”

Even as he says it, the man is already beginning to dissipate, the blanket softening around his form, loosening slowly--and then, with a last wave, he’s gone. The blanket drops onto the grass. Wide-eyed, Wonpil touches the blanket. Still warm. _He was telling the truth._

  


**_December 20, 1999 // April 28, 2011_ **  
**_Toronto, 12:01 AM // Vancouver, 12:10 AM_ **

Brian is six and eighteen.

  


The first time Brian can remember it happening is after his sixth birthday--his aunt had allowed him an extra hour of TV and an extra slice of cake and he’d gone to bed all giddy, holding a flashlight under the covers, ready to read the next installment of One Piece until the sun came up--and then all of a sudden he felt a sudden wave of nausea, his mouth filling with that warm, salty sensation he felt after roller coaster rides, usually right before he hurled onto his aunt’s shoes. His stomach churned, everything got fuzzy, the room spun--it was like eating too much and then going out for a swim or getting into a car that still smelled more like a car and less like the people who owned it. And then everything went black and he was coming to in a long, cavernous hallway, everything awash in the moonlit blue. Somewhere distant, there was the sound of water rushing. Somewhere even farther than that, there was the sound of traffic: cars rushing by in the night.

It was cold; he looked down, horror filling his veins as he realized that he was completely naked. No pajamas, no fuzzy socks, no flashlight, no comic book. He squinted up at the sign hanging by the entrance, making out the _Vancouver Aquarium_ sign before vomiting into a nearby trash can. He felt panic rushing through his veins, trying to remember what happened, how the hell he’d ended up in Vancouver, which he only knew was far away from the large map in his grade school classroom--more so naked in an aquarium? Had he been kidnapped? Had his birthday been a dream? Where was his aunt?

He felt tears start to sting his eyes as a myriad of other questions came rushing in: he hadn’t been in Canada long enough to know a lot of English--how would he be able to explain to the police that one minute, he’d been tucked in bed, looking forward to reading a comic book, and the next he’d been here, wherever this was? How would he be able to tell them his aunt’s address when he didn’t memorize it, only knew home by the particular shade of teal that the roof was painted? Only knew where their small split-level was relative to his school, the mall, his aunt’s beauty parlor? How would he explain that he lived all the way in Toronto and had no idea what he was doing on the other side of the country? Did they take kids to jail for this? The foster system?

Brian felt a sob pulse through him as he sat with his knees to his chest on the bench. And then there was the sound of a lock being picked, the padlock clattering to the floor, a door opening nearby, footsteps. Brian looked up, eyebrows knitted as he prepared what little English he knew to explain himself.

 _I am lost. I am not knowing my way home,_ he practiced in his head. _My name is Brian Kang. My aunt is Seulgi Kang. She lives in a teal house._

And then the door to his right swung open and his jaw dropped--because standing there was an older, taller, odd version of himself wearing a black hoodie, jeans, and high-cut sneakers. His dark hair was cut at an angle so that bangs swept across one eye, his cheeks. He wore a silver earring in his left ear, black eyeliner swooping across his eyelids.

“Are you--”

“--yup.”

Brian felt relief course through him. _How can this be?_ He watched as the older version of himself tossed him an old sweatshirt, a pair of shorts. He caught them before hurriedly putting them on, stuffing his hands into the overgrown sleeves and then folding them twice, thrice.

“Thanks.”

“You good?

Brian nodded. “Yeah. Where are we?”

“Vancouver.”

“Why?”

“Well,” the older version of himself said, sitting next to him and handing him a sleeve of oreos. “Our Aunt can be a kind of a bitch. And when she finds out that we’re--um, well. You know--”

“--gay?” Brian asked, spitting out a word he’d only heard other people call each other in class.

The older him laughed, plucking an oreo out of the sleeve and twisting it open, eating the side with cream before the side without. _So I don’t grow out of that._

“Yeah. She doesn’t take it too well. So we move across the country and get ourselves an education, some fucking independence.”

“You _swore._ ”

“I did.” Older Brian grinned. “You turn out to be kind of a badass, Brian Kang.”

“You’re wearing eyeliner.”

“It’s _punk._ ”

“What’s that?”

“It’s like One Piece but with music and without the pirates.”

“Fair enough.” Brian nodded, downing the cream-side of the oreo, chewing thoughtfully. “But why am _I_ here?”

Older Brian sighed. “If only I had an answer to that, kiddo. Basically, the Universe decided to fuck us up sideways with whatever this condition of ours is.”

Brian grinned at the profanity. “Aunt Seulgi would kill you.”

Older Brian snorted. “If only she could. But on a serious note. It’s called chrono-impairment. Finally went in for a medical eval last year after years of suffering through zapping in and out of time and they were treating us like a damn science experiment so I stopped going. It’s the most frustrating thing ever because we can’t take anything with us. Naked and running. That’s us, kid.”

Brian frowned. “Forever?”

Older Brian shrugs. “I dunno, little dude. I’m only eighteen.”

“I’m only six.”

“I know.”

“Right.”

“Oh yeah. Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks.” Brian beamed up at himself. “My front tooth is loose.”

“I know.”

“Right.”

“It’s April 28th today for me,” Older Brian said. “Remember that. 12:30 am. April 28th, 2011.”

“Okay. Why is that relevant?”

Brian watched the older version of himself frown.

“‘Cause you have to drag yourself out of your apartment even if the punk show was awesome and you’re hungover as fuck and there’s a really cute guy in your bed and you have a literature final tomorrow morning to give your kid self clothes and oreos because that’s what you remember your older self did for you.”

Brian’s eyes widened. “I see.”

“Take care."

“You t--”

And just like that, the room spun, tipped, tilted like a world melting off of its axis--and he was back in his room, his pajamas in a heap nearby, the flashlight and One Piece comic lying on top of them.

  


_**August 12, 2008** _  
_**Incheon, 5:30 PM** _

Wonpil is fourteen, Brian is thirty-two.

  


“Do your homework, Pirrie.”

Wonpil grins, drawing a box in blue ink around his final answer before turning a page in his textbook.

“Stop watching me, it’s weird.”

“I wasn’t.” Brian looks up at him. Today he’s wearing one of Wonpil’s dad’s old sweaters over a pair of pajama bottoms. He grins. “You were singing. That’s Kim Wonpil for not doing your homework.”

“Ah. Right.” Wonpil blushes. “You’d know, huh.”

“Mmmm. I suppose.”

Today, they’re lying in the clearing on a picnic blanket. Wonpil’s brought them snacks: cookies and chips, slices of bread and a roll of kimbap. He didn’t have a thermos to put coffee in so instead he’d brought them both tetra packs of banana milk. His own sits untouched beside him, but Brian’s finished his, choosing to chew on the small straw. Wonpil is doing his Algebra homework--or trying to--and Brian is reading one of his novels: a romance novel Wonpil pilfered from his sister’s room after she left for college.

“Doesn’t it annoy you to read it like that?” Wonpil asks. “You began it at twenty-eight which was a billion years ago and now you’re thirty-two.”

Brian shrugs. “I visited a couple of times between thirty and thirty-one, so I don’t have to wait _too_ long.”

“How old was I on those visits?”

Brian meets his eye, raises an eyebrow. “Nice try.”

Wonpil’s heart jumps in his chest. “Spoil sport.”

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m not going to tell you anything until you believe me?”

Wonpil rolls his eyes. “Until you tell me and I can call you a liar.”

“Never, then.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Bri?”

“What?”

“Have you ever...dated anyone?”

Wonpil feels a burst of gladness as a look of panic skitters across Brian’s features. _Aha._ Brian regains his composure a moment too late--Wonpil knows he’s struck a nerve.

“Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking maybe I should get a girlfriend.”

Brian grins, turning the page on his novel. “A girlfriend, huh. Why not? I say go do it.”

Wonpil frowns. “Have _you_ ever had a girlfriend?”

“Sure. Lots of them.”

 _Oh._ Wonpil blinks, feels jealousy pulse through him. “Nevermind, then.”

“Boyfriends too.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Well. Don’t sweat it,” Brian says. “If you like someone, just ask them out. Nothing to lose.”

Wonpil is in his sophomore year of highschool and only just beginning to suspect exactly _who_ Brian might be to him. In real time, in the future. Wonpil is pretty smart, if he does say so himself, had figured out that first time that most people didn’t have a bestfriend who showed up just as easily as he disappeared at random times in the clearing outside their parents’ house. In class, they’d learned about natural tendency, about lightning as a matter of _fact_ being draw to exactly the same place over and over again. He’d figured that he must be important to Brian in some way, that there must be a reason why he kept coming back _here_ , kept coming back to Wonpil.

Over the past few years, certain questions had crossed his mind: how old was Brian in real time? Why didn’t he ever see him as a kid? What if he found Brian in real life? Why couldn’t they just hang out the way normal people hung out? All these questions had swirled and sung in side him but only now has he begun to hone in on other things, miniscule but meaningful cues: the affectionate way Brian has of talking to him, the small prefixes he uses in his sentences like _I keep telling you_ or _so that’s what you meant when you said_ or _you’re going to kick my ass for this_ that makes Wonpil wonder how they know each other in Brian’s present--and how far away that is from now.

There are other things too, things that Wonpil discovers about himself and hopes Brian never figures out. First and foremost, there is the fact that he’s noticed just how good looking Brian is--his eyes and the way they tilt upward at the corners, their exact shade of deep brown, his wide smile, the dimples in his cheeks, his broad shoulders, the low register of his voice when he’s just waking up from a nap, the habit he has of whistling along to Wonpil singing. Of course, Brian had always been handsome--but as a child, Wonpil had thought so in an abstract, picture-book way. As a kid, Wonpil thought of him as attractive the way that he thought Paul McCartney or Tom Cruise were attractive. But today, as he sits up against his favorite tree solving math problems and listening to Radiohead on his iPod, watching Brian as he lies belly-down on the picnic blanket, flipping through a book, the more he realizes that Brian is, what people at school would call 100% his style, his type.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, there’s the fact that Wonpil has come up with a theory of sorts, something he wouldn’t ever dare tell Brian he thought, guessed at, hoped for. Maybe, just maybe, in the future he and Brian were something a little more than this, something with a little bit more heat, more sizzle.

“Are you married?” Wonpil asks, trying to keep the petulance out of his voice and failing miserably.

When he looks up, Brian is grinning.

“What’re you smiling at?” Wonpil tosses his eraser at Brian.

“Yes,” Brian says. “Yes, I’m married.”

“Okay.”

“Why do you ask?”

Wonpil shrugs. “It’s just weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“Why don’t we just meet up in real time? Why doesn’t it happen like that?”

Brian shrugs. “I wasn’t here.”

“Right. Who’re you married to?”

Brian sighs. “Why do you have to be so difficult?”

“Because,” Wonpil says. “I don’t like this feeling.”

“And what feeling’s that?”

“Like I’m waiting for something but I don’t know what it is.”

Brian closes the book. “Don’t wait. That’s exactly why I don’t want to give you any spoilers--”

“--aha!”

“Fuck.”

“So it _is_ something like that!”

Brian raises an eyebrow. “Like _what_?”

Wonpil blushes a deep scarlet, looks down at his workbook. “Nothing.”

There’s a soft sound of cloth hitting cloth, pages rustling in the wind. Wonpil looks up and Brian is gone.

  


_**September 29, 2023** _  
_**Vancouver, 2:48 AM** _

Wonpil is 29, Brian is 30.

  


Wonpil snaps awake as he hears Brian drop back in, his body a sudedn weight on the mattress beside him. He smiles as he hears Brian fumble around in the bed next to him. He grins as Brian’s arms come around his waist, pulling him close until Wonpil’s back is flush with Brian’s chest.

“The only good thing about all of this chrono-impaired crap is you always come back naked,” Wonpil jokes.

Brian kisses Wonpil’s ear, snuggles against the softness of Wonpil’s hair, the familiar scent of him--like honey and lilacs in bloom.

“And here I thought you liked me for my personality and not just my devastatingly sexy body.”

“Christ.”

“Sorry I missed dinner.” Brian’s voice is filled with longing.

Wonpil rubs his thumbs softly over Brian’s broad hands, turning to face him in the blue dark.

“Sorry I fell asleep,” Wonpil whispers against Brian’s lips. “You took so damn long. Which day was it?”

Brian laughs softly, leaning in to kiss him soft and slow.

“You were sulking. Worse than a detective in an interrogation room, asking me if I was married. Saying you wanted to go and get a girlfriend.”

“Well, you were infuriating. And I _did_ get a girlfriend after that, mind you.”

“Pirrie?” Brian strokes Wonpil’s cheek softly, eyes studying his own.

“Mmmm?”

“I just didn’t want you to sit around waiting for me, planning your life around me. You know that, right? It isn’t that I wanted to keep things from you to hurt you or make you suffer.”

Wonpil grins, brushing his nose against Brian’s before kissing him deep.

“You know that I did it anyway, right? And anyway, it was worth it.”

“How long until I spill the beans?”

“Two weeks,” Wonpil says, laughing.

“Fuck. So much for keeping a secret.”

“You keep me celibate until I turn eighteen, though. So that counts for some kind of self-control.”

“If only I had enough not to disappear all the time.”

“It’s okay,” Wonpil says.

“I missed your graduation dinner, Pirrie.”

“Yeah,” Wonpil assents. “But it was to keep me company when I was the loneliest. So it doesn’t count.”

Brian pulls him closer, kissing his cheeks, his nose, his lips, hoping that the kisses could take away all of those other times that Wonpil doesn’t hold against him, times when he’d disappeared and found himself elsewhere: old family dinners, a time before the car crash, his old elementary school.

“Time is nothing,” Wonpil whispers.

“Nothing,” Brian agrees, sleep finally finding him, hoping as he slips into slumber that Wonpil is right.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A party, a parting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, hey!!! It’s YoungFeel week everybody!!!! Sorry I'm late. 
> 
> For information about the ship weeks, you can check @day6shipweeks on Twitter. Also: smut in this chapter. 
> 
> Twt/CC: teenuviel1227
> 
> I'll correct typos tomorrow.

**_April 28, 2012  
_** **_5:40 PM, Incheon_ **

Wonpil is eighteen, Brian is twenty-nine.

 

Wonpil runs to the clearing, dropping his blazer on the patio as he pushes the double doors open. He hoists his backpack onto his shoulders as he makes a beeline down the yard, the hill, toward where he knows Brian is going to be sitting on an old quilt, clad in his father’s oversized clothing, waiting for him. The afternoon light plays off of the spring-green grass. Flowers are crushed under his heel as his leather shoes hit the ground. By the time he gets there, he’s out of breath but smiling wide: Brian’s sitting cross-legged on the picnic blanket, wearing an old Christmas sweater and a pair of flannel pajamas, slippers. He looks up at Wonpil and Wonpil’s heart jumps in his chest. He grins, trying to keep his composure, trying not to let Brian see just how handsome he finds him, how nervous he is for today.

The exciting thing, Wonpil realizes, about having a boyfriend--well, technically, Brian said they wouldn’t be _together_ together until Brian was twenty-seven but god knew how long it’d be until then (no spoilers, as usual) so Wonpil had made an executive decision--who travelled in and out of time was that you never knew just how handsome he was going to be. Or well, Wonpil found Brian handsome all the time but what _kind_ of handsome he’d be was a whole other thing: what age, what temperament, what hair color, what preoccupations? Would he be dark-haired and gentle at thirty-five, prattling on about books and documentaries? Would he be the stern and worried, salt-and-pepper haired Brian of forty who was always rambling on and on about politics and public transport? Perhaps that charming, flirtatious, rogue thirty-one with the silver-dyed hair and piercings, talking about the punk scene, going on and on about activist movements that Wonpil didn’t quite understand but tried his best to? Or would it be the oldest Brian that Wonpil’s encountered yet at forty-three, bull-headed but relaxed, wiser--so wise, in fact, that they’d had a fight last time Wonpil had seen him: it was something about today, something stupid, something about Wonpil being too young _even if he was legal_ , even if it was his fucking _birthday,_ something about how it wasn’t right. Brian had disappeared before they’d patched things up--not that it was his choice anyway--but his last words had given Wonpil a stem of hope.

_Why do I even try? I know what’s going to happen. You always get what you want anyway._

And the moment Wonpil lays eyes on him, he knows exactly what Brian meant.

Today, Brian is the youngest that Wonpil’s ever seen him. His hair is dyed silver but the sides of his head have been shaved too in a kind of faux-hawk, the front of it drooping into his eyes. Wonpil takes a moment to note the differences, take in the small nuances that he’s come to appreciate over the years: this young, Brian is a bit lankier, his limbs more sinew than muscle, his neck longer, more gazelle-like than in his later years. His shoulders are still broad but the sweater hangs loose over them where it sits snug when he’s older.

His mouth is upturned in a nervous smile; he’s looking up at the house looming over the horizon, glancing up at the sky.

“Hey.” Wonpil grins.

Brian turns to look at him. His eyes meet Wonpil’s.

“Holy shit.” A grin moves across Brian’s face. “Holy shit. Pil--I mean _you_ , yeah wow. You weren’t lying about the thing--”

Wonpil raises his eyebrow. “--the thing? What did I tell you about today?”

He feels himself blush from how intensely Brian’s looking at him. _It’s the first time for him,_ Wonpil realizes. _He’s never been here before today._

“Well, for one thing, it’s fucking unfair that you look good even if you’re still in highschool. You ever hear of the awkward years?”

Wonpil lets out a peal of laughter. _Older Brian would never say_ **_fucking_ ** _in front of me._

“Flirt.”

Brian grins. “I can’t help it. You--I mean--you have no idea how you--”

“--no spoilers.” Wonpil says, putting a finger to Brian’s lips.

“Right.” Brian’s cheeks are crimson.

Wonpil leans in, plants a soft kiss on Brian’s lips. “What’d older me tell you about today?”

“Just--just that I should make it memorable. And that it’d be the first time and the last time in a long time.”

Wonpil frowns, plopping down next to him. “What do you mean the last time in a long time?”

Brian shrugs. “There’s an eight-year gap between now and when we meet in real time.”

Wonpil feels his lower lip quiver, feels his eyes fill with tears. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck--”

“--hey,” Brian says, pulling Wonpil closer in a sudden movement so that Wonpil’s sitting in his lap, cradled in his arms. “Relax, will you?”

“ _Eight_ years? Do you have any fucking idea how long eight years is?”

“Damn right,” Brian says softly. “You’re about to wait eight years--I had to wait twenty-seven. Think about _that_.”

Wonpil shakes his head. “It’s different. You didn’t know what you were missing--”

“--it’ll be worth it, I promise.” Brian kisses the shell of Wonpil’s ear, the hollow of his neck. Softly, he unbuttons the top of Wonpil’s polo, undoes the fabric by his neck. “I swear to god, it’ll be worth it.”

“Bri--” Wonpil starts to sweat, feels his heart beat faster, faster, as Brian’s lips find his, as his tongue parts Wonpil’s lips and flicks up against the roof of his mouth, his tongue. Of course, he’s kissed Brian before--but they were always just small pecks, soft kisses on the cheek, the corner of his mouth. Nothing like this.

“--something to remember me by,” Brian sucks softly on the thin skin of Wonpil’s neck until it bruises.

“Bri--would you--I mean if you can--spend the night?”

“I’ll try,” Brian says softly, tipping Wonpil’s chin toward him. “I’ll try my best.”

Younger Brian is risque, does more, thinks less, his hands already finding their way under Wonpil’s shirt. Wonpil giggles, squeezes Brian’s hands before wriggling out of his grasp.

“We should head back to the house. I’ll sneak you in.”

“Aren’t your parents going to be home?”

Wonpil shakes his head. “It’s my sister’s recital--all the way in Manhattan. So. Yeah. They’ll be out for a few days. It’s just our housekeeper, Gamja, that I need to hide you from. And even then, she’s pretty distracted when they aren’t home. Plus I’ve got a fridge in my room.”

Brian tilts his head, his eyes filling with a soft sadness. “I’m sorry I couldn’t bring you anything, Pillie.”

Wonpil smiles. “You’re here and that’s enough.”

 

**_December 19, 2021  
_** **_10:31 AM, Vancouver_ **

Brian is twenty-seven.

 

“Late again.” Sungjin’s voice rings out in the high-ceilinged history wing of the Vancouver Public Library. “Come on, Bri--I know the _situation_ but seriously. Isn’t it even a little bit ironic that someone with your condition is always fucking late for everything?”

Brian lets out a sigh as he finishes his coffee off in a single swig, setting his bag down on the counter next to Sungjin. “Well. If you had to spend the better part of an hour in 2002, running from the cops for public indecency and having to break into a stranger’s house to get some clothes only to suddenly be zapped back into the present, naked and reeling with nausea as you vomit not _in_ your apartment, no, but just outside it, when the guy you’ve been trying to get with has just come by to ask you to borrow some guitar equipment which you both know is code for sex also because it’s your birthday and he was holding a cake which was the fucking sweetest but instead of boning, you had to go out butt-naked onto the fire exit _freezing_ and break into your own fucking apartment which is more strenuous than it sounds especially when you have to climb into your own bathroom window, you would probably sleep through your alarms too.”

“Fine,” Sungjin says. “I’ll fix your timecard. But you better finish the fucking cataloging today. We have a new shipment coming in on the twenty-second.”

“Do I ever let you down?”

Sungjin looks at him, deadpan. “You literally disappear into thin air.”

“Fair point.”

“So who was cake guy? Please, please, _please_ tell me that it wasn’t Channie.”

“It wasn’t Channie.” Brian sets himself up by the desk, typing the latest arrivals into their system.

“So it was Channie.”

“You _know_ it was him,” Brian says, sighing. “Who else would it be? I’ve been trying to break-up-with-and-get-back-with him for the better part of ten years.”

“Do you ever think about maybe changing your behavioral patterns, Bri?” Sungjin asks, stamping RECEIVED onto a thick wad of forms. “I dunno. If it hasn’t worked for twenty-seven years, why do you still keep doing it?”

Brian shrugs. “It’s like a favorite sitcom. You always know how it ends.”

Sungjin sighs. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Happy birthday to me, right.”

“Bri,” Sungjin says, looking Brian square in the eye. “Do yourself a favor and let _me_ make your birthday wish for you.”

Brian laughs. “Fine. Since _you’re_ the one so discontent with my life.”

“Please, for the love of god, meet someone else and set both you and Channie free.”

“Thank god I’m an atheist.”

Sungjin rolls his eyes but grins anyway. He pulls a small cupcake out from underneath his desk. The box is blue. He lifts the lid, puts a small pink candle on it and lights it with a lighter.

“Happy birthday for real by the way, Kang Bruh.”

Brian smiles back. Aside from being his boss, Sungjin is also one of his closest friends--one of the only people who know about his condition.

“Thanks, boss.”

With that, Brian blows the candle out, Sungjin's wish still lingering like an echo in his mind.

 

**_December 20, 2021_ **

**_9:59 PM, Vancouver_ **

Wonpil is twenty-six.

 

Wonpil lets out a sigh as he slips into bed, turning his bedside lamp out. _When am I going to meet him?_ He glances at his bedside table where he’s put a single, framed photograph: a polaroid taken in his bedroom on his eighteenth birthday. In it, Brian is sitting silver-haired and bright-eyed on Wonpil’s bed, clad in one of Wonpil’s old Radiohead concert shirts. His lips are kiss-bitten, a bit red and slightly swollen, but he’s smiling, his cheeks dimpling, his eyes bright.

If Wonpil closes his eyes, he can still remember that night like it was yesterday: the fumbling laughter, the heat of their love-making, how safe he’d felt in Brian’s arms afterward. And yet, despite the closeness of the memory, a part of Wonpil has also begun to doubt whether or not any of it is real: if not for the photograph, would he even be able to reconstruct Brian’s face from memory? Would he be able to fish it out of his thoughts the way he did his parents’ house back home in Incheon? Would he be able to pick him out of a crowd?

_What if I already met him and didn’t know it? It’s been eight years and seven months for fuck’s sake. How much longer?_

In a strange way, Wonpil had based his entire life around what little he knew about Brian: he lived in Canada, was from Toronto but moved to Vancouver to get away from his strict aunt, liked punk music, had a killer sense of humor, and seemed to know a lot about everything. And that was it: no job, no age, no birthday, no last name.

After highschool, Wonpil had chosen his art school because he knew that the university had a postgraduate tie-up with the bigger universities in Canada. He worked hard to get good grades and when the time came and he’d aced everything, had been given the pick: he’d turned his application in for the residency in Vancouver even if there were more prestigious programs with bigger stipends in other places. Brian had given him some clues that final night: before the year 2021 was out, he’d said, and back then it seemed like forever--but now, well, the year is just about out.

Ten days and the culmination Wonpil had been waiting on for years would finally arrive-- _if_ it arrived.

In the other room, Wonpil can hear his housemate--previously, fuck buddy and currently, bestfriend--Jae cooking up a midnight snack in the kitchen. There’s the turn of the dial on the stove, the closing of the refrigerator door. He can hear Jae’s boyfriend, Dowoon, saying something in his baritone voice about the game they’re playing and how he’s out of HP so he killed him out of mercy. Laughter, the sound of water being poured into a bowl, the smell of instant ramen wafting in from under the door.

Wonpil sighs, thinking how much he’d given up for this, for what he’s beginning to wonder is simply the _idea_ of Brian: when the thing with Jae had begun a year before (just two people with nothing better to do, or so he’d put it), Wonpil had been clear from the beginning--nothing past the next year. Fucking just for fun, no feelings, nothing like that. _Just a substitute for decent heating, got it_ , Jae had joked. Jae was a sport, had made the situation light, had made sure that things never got weird between them: fuck and run, they’d both liked to call it. And as soon as January 1, 2021 had hit, Jae had never brought it up again. In March, he’d started dating Dowoon, and now he practically lived with them too.

Of course, in the end, Wonpil had told Jae about Brian, albeit in a coded, secretive way. Sure, he left out the chrono-impairment part. Sure, he left out the bit where they hadn’t seen each other in eight years, but he’d said _open, long-distance relationship_ _until he gets back next year_ and Jae had simply shaken his head sympathetically and given him a _dude, I can totally relate--been there, done that._ Every now and then, he and Jae talked about it: Wonpil found himself making up excuses--his boyfriend’s fellowship in London got extended, he had a family thing, he would probably end up getting back just before the new year. And tonight, as he’s about to doze off, he wonders what excuse to give Jae if it doesn’t happen by the 31st.

Just as Wonpil’s eyes are about to flutter shut, he hears a soft rapping on his door.

“What?”  
  
“Pil?” The door creaks open.

“Mmmm?”

“Dowoonie and I are leaving for LA tomorrow at five--”

“--finally introducing him to the parents?”

“Yeah. Now if only, he’d wear a tie to New Year’s Eve dinner.”

“Goodluck with that--”

“--anyway, I was wondering if--”

Wonpil sighs. “--what did you forget?”

He turns around in time to catch Jae shoot him an apologetic smile. “Could you please return my library books for me? I swear to god, I’ll owe you forever.”

Wonpil rolls his eyes but finds himself grinning anyway. “Only if you cook me ramen.”

“Now? Weren’t you going to bed?”

“You woke me up.”

“Ugh--”

“--so do we have a deal?”

“Fine. But just get them back to the library tomorrow, alright? I don’t want to freakin’ drown in overdue fees.”

“Is this the uni lib?”

Jae shakes his head. “Vancouver Public.”

“The _cheese_ ramen for me, then. With an egg.”

“What--”

“--it costs _more_ to get there--”

“--fine. God forbid I can actually eat what I cooked. _Now_ do we have a deal?”

Wonpil grins, pulling the covers back and climbing out of bed.

“Deal.”

  


**_April 28, 2012  
_** **_11:49 PM, Incheon_ **

Wonpil is eighteen, Brian is twenty-nine.

 

Wonpil is taken aback at how gentle, how tentative, how careful Brian is--fingers trembling as he undoes the buttons on Wonpil’s shirt, kisses lingering long and deep and soft, his touch firm but always leaving time for him to whisper _this okay?_ or _does that feel good?_ Wonpil had done the research, had expected sex to be that rough, hurried flurry of movement that he watched in porn, that always looked a little more like pain than pleasure, had been ready to play the part to the hilt to make sure that Brian approved, to make sure that Brian would want him, would want to stay with him. But, as it turns out, he’d needed none of that: Brian took his time, let his passion run off himself until it lit a fire in Wonpil too, until every lick and kiss and nibble, every nip of a lip and tongue softly run over a terse nipple had both of them breathless and wanting. Brian was slow but passionate, took the lead but was willing to let Wonpil try. When Wonpil had moved his lips south, when he’d taken Brian into his mouth, Brian had run a thumb over his cheek, had moved slow, had whispered _oh, that’s good baby,_ had guided Wonpil until the motion had him stiff, growing against his tongue, the back of his throat. And when finally, Brian had slicked him up and let him bloom against his fingers, when finally, Brian had pushed in and Wonpil had felt himself give, Brian had soothed him softly, had whispered _it’s okay, baby, it’s okay_ softly against his ear, before moving in and out slowly, slowly, until pain became pleasure, until he had to muffle Wonpil’s moans with his palm, until he had to keep his own voice down by burying his face in Wonpil’s neck, until Wonpil’s hands were clutching at the sheets in rapture, until Brian’s toes were tense as he pushed off the bed and into Wonpil a final time, until both of them were sticky and wet and sated, lips finding lips, holding each other close, knowing this was the first, the last, a hello, a good-bye.

Later, after they laugh against each other in the shower, goofing around with the shampoo, when they’re sitting back in bed, Brian clad in Wonpil’s ratty old Radiohead shirt and pajamas that stop short right above his ankles, Wonpil takes his polaroid camera and takes a photo. Brian grins despite himself, suddenly recognizes the photo as one that Wonpil has pinned to their bathroom mirror back in the present day.

“Do you know on what day we meet?” Wonpil asks, shaking the polaroid out and leaving it to develop on his bedside table before joining Brian in bed.

“Of course, you idiot,” Brian says. “But I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you that.”

“Why not?” Wonpil pouts, wondering about that version of Brian that he’d fought with, wondering if he’s still upset and hoping to god he isn’t.

Brian grins. “Because when you came up to me that first day and almost fucking kissed me on the spot and I had no idea who you were and only that you were the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on, you were so frenzied and it was adorable and I don’t want to rob you or me of that experience.”

Wonpil sighs. “Just give me a _year._ What _year_ do we meet in?”

“When I’m twenty-seven.”

“What year is that?”

Brian hesitates, but finds his heart lurching at the sadness in Wonpil’s eyes, the pout on his lips. _It’s his birthday for fuck’s sake._ “Fine. 2021.”

“Summer or--?”

“2021, before the year is out. That’s all your getting out of me.”

“It’ll do, I guess.” Wonpil sighs before climbing into Brian’s lap, straddling him, putting his arms around Brian’s neck.

Brian smiles up at him. “Pil, I don’t think I could go again--”

Wonpil flicks him on the forehead. “I know. But I just wanted to kiss you again before--”

One moment, Brian is looking up at him with adoring eyes, the breadth and heft of him sure in Wonpil’s arms, and the next, Wonpil finds himself falling onto the bed, his clothes falling softly onto the sheets beneath him, still smelling of Brian, that distinct scent that’s all his own. Wonpil finds himself crying despite himself, despite his gladness at how the night has gone. Eight years, he thinks, holding the shirt Brian wore close, letting his scent wash over him.

_For a lifetime of Brian, eight years is nothing._


End file.
